Planting and Culture of Potatoes. 181 



wasn't it? They get their food from contact with the particles 

 of soil. If three inches of soil for them to feed in is good, are 

 not six inches better? Certainly. But you say we must cultivate 

 some of the soil to keep weeds down and check evaporation. 

 Yes ; but does not common sense teach us that we should not go 

 any deeper than what was absolutely necessary to accomplish this 

 end, and so let the roots have all the feeding ground possible ? 

 You cannot fail to see this. Some readers may not have thought 

 that roots grow all through the soil between the rows, the same 

 as under the hills. They do. By the time the potatoes are four 

 inches high, they may meet between the rows. They spread out 

 very rapidly, and soon occupy all the soil. Don't take my word 

 for it, but wash out a plant or two carefully and see. Now, I 

 consider it foolish to tear off these roots, or part of them, after they 

 are well started, and put the plant to the expense of growing them 

 over again. This the plant can do, of course, and in wet weather 

 may do it quite rapidly and without great injury ; but I had rather 

 it gave its whole energy to growing tubers, or a good, strong top 

 that always goes with a good yield on my farm. I have seen serious 

 injury done by tearing off the roots when tops were half grown 

 and dry weather followed. I have seen a young man " ride" a 

 one-horse cultivator, sinking the rear teeth, although there was a 

 wheel on in front, rightly set, some four or five inches, and doing 

 damage to the amount of $10 or $20 an acre. The growth almost 

 came to a standstill for some time, while potatoes cultivated not 

 more than half as deep, right side by side, and no better before, 

 grew right on steadily. Check the growth of a crop, and you 

 will run short at harvest. Slight root pruning will do in very 

 wet growing weather, and when plants are first starting. The 

 first cultivation after the plants are up may usually be deep with 

 safety, as well as one before they come up. But after that I never 

 allow any cultivation more than i^ to 2 inches deep. And I 

 know that it isn't. I explain the matter to a man and then tell 

 him that he must know that he isn't going any deeper, and I am 

 around to see that he doesn't forget. I have been out and looked 

 at what my man was doing twice in the last hour, while writing 

 this. The weeder will not be likely to go too deep. Generally 

 one has to bear on to make it go deep enough. I have tied on 

 half a bushel of wheat in a bag to make it go deep enough. 

 The smoothing harrow if not loaded does not go too deep before 

 potatoes are up. It may break some roots from the little plants 

 just before they come up, but not enough to do any harm, or at 

 any rate, it does good enough to more than make up the damage 

 several times over. I think you cannot help but see that this 

 shallow culture is as my friend Carman, of the Rural, puts it 

 sensible culture. Will you not, as one friend wrote me he had 

 done, ' ' join the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Roots ?" To be 

 sure, large crops have been grown with severe root pruning. If the 

 land was rich enough, the crop might stand it, and do fairly well. 



